Keyboard Maestro would be the perfect agent to pair with AI. KM can already do the things on the Mac that AI alone cannot. KM would serve as the "hands" that carry out instructions, and AI would be the "brains" that fill in the gaps in the instructions.
I'm increasingly confounded by the LACK of Agentic AI tools for my Mac. (Not just within a browser on my Mac — I know those are starting to come online.) I'm using AI more and more in my day-to-day workflows and tasks.
But I can't ask an AI to take action on my files or folders for me (the way I can with Keyboard Maestro). Nor can I get an AI to expedite tasks within my various Mac apps (the way I can with Keyboard Maestro).
I hope there's some movement afoot to try this out!
EXAMPLE Use Case 1: I need to rename the files in my Downloads folder from something generic ("img_551071-4422.jpg") to something descriptive ("Serene landscape painting of calm lake reflecting mountains with cows grazing || WAS img_551071-4422.jpeg") — so I don't have to open each one just to discover whether or not it's the one I need. More examples:
"Download_2025-03-12.pdf" becomes:
"Water Bill for 123 Main St Concord NH 01234 $30.95 for Mar 2025 Due Apr 12 2025 Acct No. 123456789 || WAS Download_2025-03-12.pdf"
"a2Md345.pdf" becomes:
"User Manual for Printer Model T-200 || WAS a2Md345.pdf"
I could do this manually, of course, or manually with AI, one file at a time... But I want to batch this process for hundreds of files using KM (For Each...).
EXAMPLE Use Case 2: I'm looking for ways to save money on software subscriptions. I want to (a) find all invoices on my Mac that I've received from software companies in the past 24 months, and (b) make a PDF of each such invoice, and (c) place the PDFs in a new folder, and (d) create a simple spreadsheet listing all of the invoices (date, company, amount, etc.).
Rather than manually performing an exhaustive search for files created in the last 24 months and containing the text "invoice" or "bill" or "receipt", and then manually reviewing each one (or manually uploading each to an AI to perform the review), and so on…
With KM+AI, I could create a reusable macro that performs a search using Spotlight, where the AI sets the search parameters according to my prompt (Prompt for User Input). Then the macro uses the AI to review the resulting files, and determine which of them match the rest of the criteria in my prompt that can't be determined with Spotlight (it's an invoice or equivalent, from a software company, for a subscription, etc.). Then the macro prints a PDF copy of each matching file, saving the PDFs into a new folder (with an appropriate name created by the AI). Then the AI extracts the pertinent info (date, company, amount, etc.) from the PDFs and creates a CSV file.
Hazel renames pdf files in my Download folder according to their content for years now, and I guess you can do this with KM too. There is no such thing for image contents, but as an amateur photographer I have a more sophisticated system to sort and identify ten thousands of images than to name every file according to its content.
I have several saved searches in HoudahSpot doing exactly that for years. My banking software MoneyMoney puts all income and expenditures in categories I once defined (and don’t need to touch often). I can tell you within seconds what I spent on software in the last year or Q3 2015.
Maybe there is some enthusiasm gap on my side (I sometimes use LLMs for assisted programming and barely anything else), but more basic use cases (instead of data mining your own file system to generate sophisticated reports) would certainly help to see where KM could fit in.
Yes, what you are asking for will be easy to do with the macOS26 Shortcuts app, with or without KM as a controlling app. No change will be required to KM to make this work, in fact I don't think you will need KM at all, as macOS Shortcuts should be able to do this without KM.
Why can you not do this now? Upload each image along with a "describe this image in 10 words or fewer" prompt, use the output to do the rename.
Similarly for your other examples.
If you can do it "manually with AI" you're 90% of the way there -- it's getting useable info out of the AI that's the problem, not the integration with KM.